Museums: a wholesome recreational alternative to procreation and the pub*

The Attic (a name which commemorates our first physical location) is, first and foremost, a site for the research students of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester: a virtual community which aims to include all students, be they campus-based and full-time, or distance-learning and overseas. But we welcome contributions from students of museum studies - and allied subject areas - from outside the School and from around the world. Here you will find a lot of serious stuff, like exhibition and research seminar reviews, conference alerts and calls for papers, but there's also some 'fluff'; the things that inspire, distract and keep us going. After all, while we may be dead serious academic types, we're human too.

The Art of Science Learning: Shaping the 21st-Century Workforce is an NSF-funded project convening educators, scientists, artists, business leaders, researchers and policymakers in three conferences this Spring (Washington DC, Chicago and San Diego) to explore how the arts can be engaged to strengthen STEM skills and spark creativity in the 21st-Century American workforce.

Following the successful debut of The Art of Science Learning conferences in Washington DC (April 6-7), we invite you to participate in the next conference in this series, hosted by the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago May 16-17.

The 1½-day conferences are hands-on, workshop-based forums organized around three interactive tracks that will: showcase interdisciplinary methods using arts-based learning to develop creativity, critical thinking and communication skills in the future STEM workforce (Educational Practice); share current research into the impact of arts-based approaches on science education (Research); and explore the connection between the arts, innovation and American economic competitiveness (Workforce Development).

A conference agenda is available on the website, The conference will feature opening keynotes by Walter Massey, President of the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and Qualcomm co-founder Harvey White. All conferences also feature Dr. Todd Siler's unique Metaphorming Workshop, in which participants collaboratively model and explore ideas using arts and science-based hands-on techniques.

***STOP PRESS***

Museums (em)Power PhD Conference

We have a new PhD conference upcoming this year September 13-14, 2018. It is called Museums (em)Power and will thematically explore power from a contemporary, museum context. The official website and details are forthcoming. Stay tuned to the Attic Blog for the latest!